Wire guides are used extensively in surgery to allow surgeons access to passageways and vessels within the body. These vessels may include vascular vessels, ureters, the urinary tract, the bile duct, the bowel and digestive tract, and others. Typically, surgeons wishing to introduce a catheter or other diagnostic or therapeutic instrument into such a passageway or vessel utilize the Seldinger technique which encompasses the exchange of instruments over a wire guide. One accepted method is to first introduce a wire guide into the patient, working the wire guide into the body of the patient in a minimally-invasive manner.
An example would be the use of a wire guide to introduce a catheter into a ureter. If a ureter is to be catheterized, a wire guide with a soft, non-traumatic tip is passed through the lumen of the ureter until it arrives at the kidney. The distal end of the wire guide is placed into a body orifice or opening and the surgeon works with the proximal end to infiltrate the wire guide through the ureter until it arrives at the kidney or other desired location. A catheter is then placed over the wire guide and the surgeon gently works the catheter down the wire guide until it arrives at the kidney or other desired location. When the catheter or other medical device is in place, the wire guide may be withdrawn.
Wire guides are used extensively and are available in a wide variety of sizes and shapes. Variables available include the diameter and length of the wire guide, the stiffness or flexibility of the shaft or body of the wire guide, the stiffness or flexibility of both the proximal and distal end, and whether or not the distal end has a curvature or an angle, ranging from a 5° angle, up to a 180° angle or even greater. Because of this great variety, and because wire guides are used in so many ways for so many surgical procedures, a hospital or surgical center may need to keep many wire guides in inventory to meet the needs of their patients and surgeons. In one example, wire guides may be available in seven diameters from 0.018 inches to 0.038, the body or shaft may be “stiff” or “flexible,” and the tips may also be straight or manufactured at an angle from the longitudinal axis of the wire guide. In this example, then, a surgery center may need to inventory twenty-eight different wire guides, seven diameters in each of two shaft or body stiffnesses, and with an end that is either straight or angled.
Thus, because wire guides are so useful, it may be necessary to purchase and store a great many varieties in order to meet the needs of users. This requires hospitals and other users to purchase, store, and inventory a great many varieties of wire guides to meet all situations and needs. What is needed is a way to reduce the wire guide inventory requirements of hospitals and surgery centers. What is needed is a way to make wire guides more useful in a way that allows hospitals to reduce their inventory without sacrificing the variety of configurations available to patients and surgeons. The present invention is aimed at meeting these needs.